Chapter Thirteen
~Jessie~
Jessie yawned, stretching at the kitchen counter.
A whole new day. Sun was shining. Birds were chirping.
His knot was soft…today was going to be a good day.
Holding up his mug, scratching the top of his head, he stared out the kitchen window at the early morning light.
King’s Fall glittered over the top of houses in the neighborhood behind his, and winged creatures zipped through the clouds that floated above.
Jessie took a long, exaggerated sip out of his mug.
Smiling to himself, he turned away from the window to get ready for the day.
..when a pair of knuckles pounded against his front door.
Jessie scowled as Nik poked his head out of the living room, having been interrupted from his morning breakfast while watching the news ritual.
Jessie couldn’t watch a single second of the news live; he got too emotionally invested in the stories.
Something he shared with his mother. Only Pops watched the news.
Jessie had Nik give him the run down. It’s important to be politically and socially cognizant.
..but I know where my limits are. Jessie needed that Nik-sized buffer between journalists and him to allow him to digest it.
However, both of their morning rituals were put on hold as Jessie stalked through the townhouse to the front door. He stopped as he saw Isabella on the steps, midway to pulling a t-shirt onto Barnibus.
“Who is it?” Isabella asked. Katarina was still in the shower and likely couldn’t hear. Jessie nodded at Nik who moved from the living room to sitting in front of the tiny girl. Just in case. Not many people had the nerve to show up to his home unannounced.
Jessie glanced through the peephole and groaned. “Pops!”
He ripped open the front door open to find his father just on the other side.
The older minotaur, sporting the same rust-and-cream-colored fluff with sharp horns protruding from his forehead and a scar down the right side of his face—something that’d grown more distinct with age—stared at his son through the door.
“What are you doing here? I thought family dinner was tonight?” Jessie huffed, crossing his arms.
“Did you roll Big Bobby?” Pops, aka Titan Bonesaw, accused him with a finger jabbed in his face.
“Pops,” Jessie warned, glancing at the stairs where a tiny pair of ruby eyes looked over Nik’s head. He could see her cute little nose pushing through the fur like binoculars through a bush. Jessie returned his attention to his father. “Not now.”
“Why? You got somewhere to be? Cause I didn’t find you at the shop. Turns out you hardly open recently, why is that?” Titan planted his hands on his hips.
“Why am I explaining my business practices to you, old man?” Jessie scoffed, throwing his hands out to the side.
“Because I thought I left my business in the hands of my capable son and not some...who is that?”
Jessie froze, turning slowly as his father bullied his way through the front door. The telltale squeak of Isabella being caught filled the house. Jessie also heard the shower cut off. Shit. He twisted, grabbing his dad’s arm.
“We got house guests. Let's take this outside.” His father, thankfully, wasn’t so proud a man as to discuss business in front of house guests.
The pair of Bonesaws left out the front door and Jessie slammed the door behind him.
Mostly as a message for Nik. He didn’t want his enforcer to follow; he needed him playing distraction.
Jessie motioned toward the driveway, back toward the shop where business was meant to be discussed.
One thing Titan urged him to do was separate work from home.
It was how his Ma got through most of her healer school and residency without knowing what really paid the bills.
Jessie still had nightmares of the night Ma healed him on the kitchen table.
Not that long ago, one of Pop’s old business friends wanted to chat about their deal.
Jessie took a knife to the gut over it. He woke up in a cold sweat still, seeing his mother sobbing over him, Elliot and Titan screaming at each other in the corner.
He just kept thinking, this is how I die.
“Big Bobby didn’t want to pay,” Jessie huffed to his father as they stepped out onto the sidewalk leading down the hill to the shop.
“What? Bobby always pays,” Titan scoffed.
“You. He always pays you, Pops.” Jessie crossed his arms over his chest, hooves clicking against the concrete.
“Bah,” his father rolled his eyes. “You simply got to ask him nicely. Bobby’s sensitive.”
“I did! I sent Tito first. You know Tito's the sweetest guy to work with, and he told Tito he’d have it the week after. So, I go down to get it myself, thinking there’s something wrong at the shop.
Something I could handle for him. He gives me this bullshit about how he wasn’t ready to pay just yet and he’d get me the money. Swears up and down he will.”
Titan let out a hard snort through his nose, “What an idiot. So, you rolled him for money he owed?”
“Yeah, what he tell you?”
“He didn’t,” Titan shook his head, chewing on his cheeks like he were chomping on cud. “I heard through the grape vine he was looking for sympathy. Wanted to see what nonsense power trip you were on. Didn’t realize the idiot got what he deserved. Bobby’s never played me like that.”
“Yeah, well...when you first started, you didn’t take over an operation from your pops.
You got a little bit from people who died or didn’t want to do it no more, Pops.
I got handed keys to the kingdom. We both knew it’d come with some growing pains.
So, I sent a message, that if anyone wants to play with me, they had best be wearing good shin guards. ”
The men shared a chortle as they rounded the fence to the shop. All the bay doors were open, only two were full, the other two were full of tires that were still being dropped off and counted. Jessie stopped to inventory the shop from the top of the parking lot.
“Alright, and why aren’t you opening the shop?”
“Don’t need to, most of the deliveries I'm needed for are in the afternoon. Doesn’t take the boss to count some tires or check the machines off.
The office girls count their own drawers, and I count them back in.
” Jessie didn’t want to feel proud just yet.
His father was a bit of an obsessive, control freak when it came to the business.
He never hired any managers, outside of Jessie and Rex, because he couldn’t trust anyone.
Hard to be the man in charge of multiple businesses when half of them can’t be on paper.
Titan Bonesaw didn’t build an empire for that long without the new Lord Commander in office, without being good at keeping it all together.
But Jessie had improved on the empire. He’d changed up inventories and labels for stock so he could receive all shipments on paper and sell them all above board.
Sure, the swords for the Devil in the woods weren’t called ‘blood encrusted, hexed blade from the badlands’ but something like ‘BESx- v12’, which when asked was just another specialty part used on a vintage vehicle.
That way he could be paid and pay out people from a completely council-approved bank account.
He’d fully transformed the old business into the new century.
Some things still need to be done the old way, like smuggling people in and out of the city... But Jessie was proud. Very proud of what he’d accomplished in the short span of a year at the ship’s helm.
“Where’s Rex?” Titan looked around inquisitively.
“Bet he’s in the office. I had some shipments yesterday that still needed filing.” Jessie shrugged before he turned to his father head on. “Pops, you didn’t teach me everything you know for me to be a dumbass. I know what I’m doing.”
“I know, but...” Titan pivoted to him, patting Jessie’ on the shoulder. “I’m your old man, you know, I’m still allowed to worry over ya. You know, until I stop breathing, you’re still my calf.”
“Ew, yuck,” Jessie gagged.
“Say that to your mother,” Titan sneered.
“No thanks, I choose living.” Jessie slapped his father’s bicep, hoping he might leave.
As much as he liked the praise and love.
..it felt like his father might ask something less easy to explain.
Jessie could explain his business choices all day long.
But he caught his father’s curious glance and knew for a fact he was about to ask the complicated question.
Titan didn’t even hesitate. “So, whose kid was that? You or Nik’s?”
Jessie threw his hands in the air, exasperated but not surprised. He stomped down the asphalt, his father following quickly after him. “No one’s—”
“Your mother’s gonna kill ya if she finds out—”
“Pops! Bella’s not my kid!’ Jessie roared, walking backward through the empty Bay 4. He narrowly avoided stacks of tires, but his father didn’t let up. In fact, he charged through the bay, offering half-assed waves to the techs who called out his name.
“Oh, it’s Bella, is it?”
“Katarina needed a place to stay. Nik and I said she could crash on the couch. She’s got a kiddo, that kiddo’s name is Bella.” Jessie went straight for the back fence, focusing on unlocking it to keep him from sputtering under his father’s bulldozing.
If Ma thinks I’ve had a kid without her knowing about them?
She’ll wring my neck. All his mother ever wanted was a big family.
She had three boys. And ever since Elliot got his royal head out of his ass, the family was back to having weekly dinner nights at the house.
Rex even moved back home for the time being while he figured out if he was going to college or if he was doing more work like Jessie.
Good thing, cause Rex needs stability. Jessie tried to see what everyone needed and be that thing.
Elliot needed his goofy little brother to remind him that being some big bad captain (now coach) wasn’t all he was.
Pops needed an heir, someone smart and quick to learn.
Ma needed her baby boy to dote on and let her shine his horns cause Rex was too wiggly and Elliot was too embarrassed.
Rex? His baby brother needed a steady rock. So, Jessie scheduled him to open, gave him a list of things to look over every day, and told Rex he depended on him. Rex showed up every day because he felt obligated...and that kept the little rascal from going off the rails.
“And so she’s Niks?” Titan poked his way into the graveyard with Jessie.
“No! And even if she was, it wouldn’t be none of your business!” Jessie started to pull out all the tables and pieces they needed for stripping parts. Since they had a few busted cars dropped off yesterday, they were going to be busy until dinner.
“Why are you so defensive?” Titan huffed, only to stop and sniff hard. Jessie froze, hunched over a table, plugging in the lights, to look over his shoulder. His father sniffed in his direction and Jessie jerked backwards.
“Pops, what the fuck?”
“That’s why,” Titan hummed with disdain.
“What are you talking about? Did Ma pop you with her steel toed slipper by accident this morning?” Jessie eyed his father up and down before lifting his arm.
He sniffed at his armpits to check and found he still smelled freshly washed and of deodorant.
When he looked back at his father, Titan shook his head.
“Invite the poor girl to dinner tonight, I’m telling your mother.”
“Telling Ma what?” Jessie yelled after his father. He lurched forward, stopping on his right hoof as his father charged, unphased, toward the back door that spat out near the family house. Titan waved a dismissive hand back at his son but didn’t even turn to look at him when he yelled.
“We’re making pasta! Bring flowers for ya mother!”